Firstly, happy 50th to one of my new friends Sarah Yeates. We met as I was invited to speak to her organisation, then she offered to become a volunteer for DAI, and now, I would consider we are friends. I was disappointed not to be able to travel to Victoria on the weekend just gone…
It was a day of interesting opportunities and challenges having a film crew in my house (sometime earlier this or last year – I can’t remember as I started writing this blog the day after). The denial bubble we prefer to live in disappeared that day, as we had to focus on what it is…
On one of my other websites Living Beyond Dementia™, I have posted part of an article from The Radical Respite Project. Living beyond dementia is still not overly acceptable publicly, as the media still wants the stories of ‘tragedy and suffering’, and when people with dementia refuse to go home and die via aged care, they…
Firstly, thanks to @ML_Leaver for permission to use this image, and well done for the great hair colour supporting the gay marriage campaign by the team at Rock Retro Scissors in Adelaide! Prior to being diagnosed with dementia, I understood intellectually that some groups in our community were disadvantaged, and being treated unfairly, being discriminated and…
I’m often asked for a various lengths of my bio and this is one version I gave recently: Kate Swaffer is a published academic and author, an international speaker, an activist, and a dementia and aged care consultant; she is a retired nurse, has a Masters of Science in Dementia (Distinction, 2014), and is a…
Alone Crowded in by people Many of whom seem not to care Most who barely know me Too much noise Too many strange voices Too many different conversations Too many distractions Not able to keep up The beginning of confabulation Just to save face And maintain dignity Kate Swaffer © 2017
Kay Bransford, a long time virtual friend of mine wrote on her blog Dealing with dementia, in a post titled “Letting us in”; “I learned that once my mom was having cognitive issues, I couldn’t expect her to change. I had to change. We (my siblings and I) made life choices for her when she no…
